Obsolescence

A hosted solution eliminates the issue of CPE becoming obsolete, which is often accompanied by higher maintenance costs and/or difficulty getting spare parts, and ultimately results in a major RFP-based effort to evaluate new offers and replace the system.
InfoTech’s research shows that the average life of server-based systems is 3–5 years as opposed to traditional PBX lifetimes of 7–10 years or longer.  In addition, open platforms now emerging to serve the hosted services market promise to include real-time multimedia applications from multiple providers, through an IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem)-compliant architecture, and will reduce the risk of functional obsolescence.

Conclusion

Hosted services offer savings and reduced complexity in many areas. Companies considering hosted solutions should investigate how each would apply to their situation. While many companies may save money in these areas, this article was not intended to be a full comparison of all costs involved in each scenario, and companies should still go through a full TCO/ROI analysis to compare the true costs of each solution.
From a functional standpoint, the conclusion is clearer: Unless a company has unique mission critical  requirements, the value of “control” is largely a myth. The second part of this article, which will appear in next month’s BCR, will present some key results from an ROI tool that will show more detail on the financial comparisons

Companies Mentioned In This Article

Avaya (www.avaya.com)
BroadSoft (www.broadsoft.com)
Cisco (www.cisco.com)
Citel (www.citel.com)
ipDialog (www.ipdialog.com)
Polycom (www.polycom.com)
Sylantro (www.sylantro.com)
Tekelec (www.tekelec.com)
Uniden (www.uniden.com)
Zhone (www.zhone.com)